


Alive

by Sunflower_Boy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Depression, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Sort of AU, Suicide, Unrequited Love, brief descriptions of gore, depressed!peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 06:03:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20041117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunflower_Boy/pseuds/Sunflower_Boy
Summary: There's a demon in Peter's bedroom and it whispers to him at night





	Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the warnings

There’s a demon in Peter’s room, sitting in the corner just a little bit too casually.. Its large, clawed hands resting on its bony knees, spiralling horns protruding from its head. Charred wings sprout from its back, spreading until they span the room and cover him like a dark cloud. It feels out of place. A demon in his bedroom. A black smudge against his usually colourful space.

At night Peter can see its sharp, almost needle-like teeth glint in the pale moonlight, as if waiting to sink into Peter’s soft flesh, tearing him apart like paper.

For a while it just sits there. Waiting. Watching. Large, black eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets, staring at him with a dark grin that looks like it splits its face in two.

With its presence comes a heaviness, a darkness that fills the space around him, like its sucking the colour out of Peter’s life and filling his hollow insides with smoke until he can’t breathe, can’t think. Until all he can feel is the ever growing emptiness inside of him.

Peter can’t sleep anymore. Not with that thing in his room. Not when at night it crawls out of hiding to sit on his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs and weighing him down. Its darkness wraps around him like a blanket, and it’s hard to see anything else.

It whispers to him at night. Horrible truths. About himself, about the world, about the people around him.

_“Do you feel alive?”_ It asks, _“And if the answer’s ‘no’, then why not kill yourself?”_

There’s a demon in Peter’s room and it starts following him around. He takes it to school like an extra backpack, arms wrapped around Peter’s neck, full weight on his skinny shoulders, and even with super strength he can’t seem to carry it for long.

Its breath smells like rot and death, but its voice sounds like bells, loud and overbearing and haunting, beckoning him like a siren. It entices him to listen to every word, to believe the bile dripping from its teeth, soaking into his skin like acid rain. Its horrible truths linger in Peter’s thoughts, overbearing and all encompassing.

The demon grows every day. Teeth getting sharper. Claws getting longer. And that sinister grin getting wider and wider, until those razor teeth are pressed against his throat.

Peter nearly collapses on the sidewalk from the weight of it.

He feels insane. No one else but him can see the horrifying creature that had slowly carved a hole in Peter’s chest and made it its home. Every time he considers asking for help he thinks about the way everyone looks at him like he’s normal, and maybe he’s all just imagining it. Maybe he’s making it up. Maybe he’s truly crazy.

He decides he doesn’t want anyone to know about the demon in his bedroom, about the darkness in his guts.

Tony starts to notice anyway, but he can’t seem to see the creature that’s attached itself to Peter either. Still, he tries to help, taking Peter aside to ask him if he’s okay. It’s nice, knowing that there’s someone who still cares, but as soon as he can think them claws find their way around his neck and the sound of bells corrupts those thoughts.

_“He doesn’t care,”_ it says. _“You’re being a burden,”_ it says. _“Say yes.”_

So Peter does.

He forces a smile and dismisses Tony’s concerns, but clearly it’s not enough.

“Kid, I worry about you. You haven’t been yourself lately, and I need you to know that there’s no shame in asking for help.” Peter can only focus on that first word. Patronising. _Kid, kid, kid, kid_. Tony just sees him as a kid, a child, someone who needs to be taken care of. _A burden_.

_“He’s only saying that to feel better about himself, to make sure he doesn’t have to worry,” _it hisses, and pours more poison down Peter’s throat.

Tony ends up letting it go, and he just can’t bring himself to be relieved, because now he’s well and truly alone again.

Peter cries that night. Soft, desperate sobs that stay hidden under the safety of his blankets. The demon seems to feed on it, lapping at his tears and encouraging more to fall.

_“You make the people around you sad…” _it purrs. _“So selfish and weak…” _Peter thinks about the way Tony looked at him, the feeling of the man’s large hand resting on his shoulder and he thinks he doesn’t deserve any of it. Doesn’t deserve his love, his concern, his sympathy.

He stops going out as spider-man, unable to swing around and save lives when he can barely save his own. There are far more competent heroes around to save the day, and the demon hanging from his shoulders makes sure to tell him so, whispering to him about his long list of failures, before gently pulling him back into bed.

It’s better this way.

Probably.

May worries, Ned worries, MJ worries. His phone gets blown up on the daily, but he hardly has the energy to respond. May sits on the side of his bed and almost begs him to talk to her, but his throat feels too tight, his lungs too full of smoke and he feels like he’s drowning.

_“They wouldn’t understand.”_

And then Tony – of course it’s Tony, it’s always Tony – sends him a message that somehow breaks through the fog and Peter can’t ignore the threat to break into his apartment and haul his ass to the avenger’s tower himself, not even when skeletal arms wrap around his ankles like a dead weight. It demands he stay inside. Peter almost listens.

* * *

Tony smells warm and familiar as he pulls Peter into a hug that feels close to desperation and Peter thinks he might love him. Thinks he might want to stay like this forever. He feels like he could cry, but his heart feels too numb and his shoulders feel too heavy and in the end all he can do is stand there and let Tony embrace him.

He thinks Tony might need this more than he does.

“You’ll be okay,” Tony murmurs, fingers carding through Peter’s hair soothingly. “I’ll find you the best therapist in this city. You’ll be okay.” It sounds somewhat like a dream. Peter long since stopped keeping track of what’s real and what isn’t, and truth be told nothing feels real anymore.

_“He’s lying to you,”_ a voice whispers right next to Peter’s ear, _“A man like him has better things to do than babysit some whiny kid.” _Because that’s how Tony sees him. He’s just a kid. Just a stupid kid.

More poison down his throat, wicked claws forcing his head down.

“I don’t need your help,” Peter says, voice hollow and steady, emotionless, and Tony freezes. He doesn’t let go of Peter, though. If anything his grip tightens, like he’s afraid Peter will slip away.

“I don’t want to lose you, Peter,” he responds, soft and vulnerable, and Peter thinks he might want Tony.

It’s always Tony.

It’s so typical of him to want things he shouldn’t have.

_“Doesn’t deserve.”_

Peter almost kisses him just then, in an attempt to feel something again, in the hopes that maybe the feeling of Tony’s lips will bring him back to life, to prove that he’s not some _kid_. Tony deserves better than that, though, better than _him,_ and the demon sinks its claws into his gut and forces him backwards, stumbling along the hardwood.

The look on Tony’s face tells him everything he needs to know. Tony knows that Peter was going to kiss him, and the immense guilt that washes over the older man’s features makes shame and regret coil tightly in his chest. He never should’ve come here in the first place, but how could he ever say no?

“Stay here tonight,” Tony says, despite what had just happened, and Peter just knows it’s pity. He doesn’t need to be pitied like he’s a child. He’s 18, he’s an adult, he-

He still can’t say no.

Tony presses a kiss to Peter’s forehead and Peter wishes it was to his lips instead, but even if he lived a million lifetimes doing nothing but good he still wouldn’t deserve the privilege of having Tony Stark.

That night as he lies alone in one of Tony’s many guestrooms it no longer feels like a demon. It feels like a god. A god of death and darkness, and Peter is just so painfully small compared to its greatness, infinity caught within itself. He can only submit.

* * *

There’s a demon in Peter’s bedroom, and it slips knives into his spine. They settle neatly between his vertebrae, slowly paralysing him until he can barely move his legs. He spends nights and days in bed, thinking about the ache in his limbs and back, the way his body feels too heavy to carry on its own, and still the demon keeps him pinned down.

Peter figures he should remove the blades from his back, untie those chains from around his ankles, but they’re the only thing keeping him from bleeding out entirely, and he’s not ready to be confronted with what’s really inside him.

But in the dark those cruel claws finally dig through his chest, cracking open his ribs, sharp nails squeezing his heart until Peter can’t feel a damn thing anymore. It tears out his insides. Guts strung along like Christmas lights, hanging from its bony wrists.

_“They don’t care,” _it purrs, _“I’m all you’ve got.”_ And it grabs another handful of flesh and blood and muscle and strips Peter bare.

There’s nothing left of him.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, sweet nothingness, and Peter finds he craves it. He craves the end. And, gentle like never before, the demon clears the haze that’s been covering him and guides him to it.

It sits in the bathtub with him, large wings cocooning him, shielding him from the outside as those horrible claws hold onto his wrists. Its stare is almost comforting as it slides the blade down the road.

_“They won’t miss you.”_

It hurts, but not as much as the ache that’s permanently resided in his chest, and when the blood stains the clear bathwater Peter figures this is probably what he deserves.

And his demon, his god of death, stays with him until the very end.


End file.
